Maryland Terrapin Stew

Perhaps no dish in Southern cookery was ever more relished or respected than the rich terrapin stews prepared in Baltimore’s “turtle-soup houses” in the early nineteenth century—to such a degree that by the middle of the century, the stew had become the pride of the city’s Maryland Club and other elite social venues. Small diamondback terrapins from the fresh or brackish waters of the region were the aristocrats of the turtle world, but such was the popularity of this stew that by the twent